On Saturday the kids and I decided to head down to Berchtesgaden. So two days later we are in the Bovarian Alps. We filled our first full day with a salt mine tour, a visit to the lake, and an Alpine slide.
First thing in the morning we headed down from our lodge in the mountains to Berchtesgaden and the salt mine. Before you go into the tour they have you put jump suits on to protect your clothes. Don’t we all look so cute? We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the mine, but it was lots of fun. We took a train into the mountain. Went down very big slides to go from one floor to the next (the baby didn’t like this very much and I don’t think I would have been allowed to go down them in states). But non-the-less they were fun. There was of course information about the mines and an underground lake that we were able to take a boat across. It really was a very fun tour.
Königssee to be continued….
Today we decided to hang out around home. We did do some errands on base, but other than that we enjoyed our beautiful village.
We ate lunch on the patio:
We went on a walk:
Had icecream:
In all it was a pretty fun day.
Today we went to Ossenberg Germany. This is where Papa’s Uncle George went missing during WWII. During Papa and Grandma’s first trip to Germany we follwed George’s route from Normandy through France. We decided it would be a good idea to now visit the final leg of his route. Ossenberg is a very small village, that is on hardly any maps. But we were able to find it. Below is a short history of George that I wrote for a class I was teaching.
We are grateful for what Uncle George did and we had a neat experience to be able to go where he did. Also, thank you to all the men and women out there who continue to serve and sacrifice for our country.
For the weekend we stayed at the Dümmer See. It is a nice lake in northern Germany, only about 10 miles from where our Blumenhorst relatives where from. So we were able to take advantage of the lake and learn about the area Grandma Hibbs’ family came from.
The Blumenhorst lived in the small village of Westrup, here you see Grandma as we entered into the village. We decided to try and find the house that Grandma’s great grandparents lived in. We only had the house number and the village name to go off of but we gave it a try. We soon realized that the village of Westrup did not reuse any of the house numbers so we had a chance. We did find where the house used to be (the neighbor confirmed the address for us), unfortunately the house was no longer there and it was only an empty lot. But we did get a feel for what the village and area was like. We can see why they were happy to settle in Kansas because areas are pretty similar.
After being able to see the area our anscestors grew up, we went back to the Dümmer See to cool off (our van still doesn’t have a working a/c). We had fun playing in the water and watching the sail boats.
Today we saw the famuous Bremen Town Musicians, though we could never figure out why the Grimm brothers named them that since they never made it to Bremen. Bremen was a neat town to visit and we had fun walking through the old quarters.
Though the favorite part of the day (at least for the boys) was in Hamburg. We went to the world’s largest model train exhibit. Let’s just say that our little engineers where in Heaven! They loved it. There were loads of trains and other things to see. Everywhere one looked something was moving.
Today Miss Cheryl went home and Papa came! We had to wait a while between Miss Cheryl’s flight and Papa’s so we headed a little north. We found a fun park to play in, which made the time go much faster. The kids loved the playground. We spent almost an hour there before exploring the rest of the park. Since it was a warm sunny day we just had to remember not to look at the people sun bathing or we would see more than we had intended. But we did enjoy many of the other sights of the park, including a pond that had ducks. Landyn and Payton are both big fans of ducks so they were excited to see that. Of course the highlight of the day was being able to pick Papa up from the airport. I don’t know who was more excited, the kids or Grandma but it was one happy day here at our house.
For Miss Cheryl’s last day here we headed to Burg Eltz, a beautiful castle that is near the Mosel River and is still privately owned. We enjoyed our nice stroll down the mountain…our legs were feeling it later…and then getting to explore the castle. The kids did great during the tour and listened very well for little ones during an hour long tour of the castle. But what I think they enjoyed the most was playing in the courtyard.
After Berlin we headed to Poland, where we did some Polish pottery shopping. We had a fun time and even the kids liked to see all the patterns. Of course we could only handle so much shopping so we loaded back up and headed to Prague. We stayed in an apartment right in the heart of Prague; the above picture shows the view of the St. Nicholas Church which we could see from our windows. We were across the street from the church and just one block up the road from the famous St. Charles Bridge.
We started out our morning by heading across the St. Charles Bridge. The kids liked seeing the knight and watching the boats go under the bridge. We then headed to the old town square and got some treats along the way. We had lots of fun looking at all the neat buildings of Prague and touring the Jewish Quarter. The boys even had the experience of wearing yarmulke (a head cap), while we toured the cemetery and other buildings. We were able to learn much about the Jewish culture and the persecutions they faced during the past.
We toured the great city of Berlin today, this time in much more pleasant weather than our previous trip. We started by heading to the Brandenburg Gate. After drinking some hot chocolate, Grandma and Miss Cheryl went to the museum to the Murdered Jews. The kids and I stayed outside in the memorial. Then we headed back to Brandenburg Gate and started our walking tour. We learned lots and saw many sights.
While stopped at the Brandenburg Gate the kids decided to use it as a jungle gym. They had lots of fun climbing around and on the gate. Good thing it is such a sturdy structure, that such romping doesn’t harm it.
The boys liked seeing all the bears around the city. Though there are no bears in Germany, especially not where Berlin is, Berlin is for some reason famous for bears so you can find them all over the city.
After renting a van with air conditioning we headed east towards Rothenberg ab der Tauber. Grandma was excited to visit a village on Germany’s Romantic Road and the kids were just excited to be traveling in a “new” car. After some shaky starts I got used to driving a stick shift again and we made it safely to Rothenberg.
Are first stop in Rothenberg was of course the wall. We had to climb this medieval masterpiece and walk along the village wall. This was probably one of the highlights of the day for the children. After walking along the wall for a while we headed back down to rejoin Grandma (who wouldn’t go up with us). When we found the village square we found that there was a band playing. This was fun to listen to and created a fun atmosphere while walking the square.
After seeing the square we headed to the toy museum. Oh how the kids liked this. There were so many trains, cars and dolls that everyone was pleased in all the rooms we visited. It took us a little while to pull Landyn away from a display of about 30 or more different trains.
We ended the day walking through the medieval village and through the outer gardens.
What You've Said